


A Normal Life

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 15:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5296604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd just wanted to get his photo taken with Mickey Mouse.   It didn't seem like too much to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Normal Life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomfest for the prompt "trapped"
> 
> * * *

Somehow Matt thought that after the abrasions healed and the bones knit back together, his life would go back to normal. Not his _normal_ normal. By the time John bent over the rails of his hospital bed and kissed him he'd kind of figured out that his days of forty-eight hour coding marathons and trying to see if he could eat every offering on the Oriental's menu in a three item plus eggroll combination were behind him. There were one thousand three hundred and seventy two combinations – he'd figured it out – so it had been a lofty goal. He'd had to make a spreadsheet. Of course, the spreadsheet was housed on his hard drive and the hard drive was destroyed when the bad guy responsible for the abrasions and the broken bones blew up his damn apartment, so maybe everything sorta came full circle.

Still. He'd expected that his new normal would include things like eating actual food that didn't come out of a take-out container, getting more than four hours of sleep at a time, and fucking John McClane's brains out. A lot. And it did – they especially worked on that last one, so much so that the 'more than four hours of sleep' part didn't always seem to happen – but his new normal also included getting caught in a shoot-out the _one time_ he stopped in to a bakery instead of eating the food they had in the fridge. And holding his breath while John dangled out of a goddamn helicopter after that whole jewelry store explosion. And taking a trip to California to meet Holly – a nerve-wracking experience all in itself, thank you very much – that quickly turned into thwarting a terrorist attack at Disney World, a dune buggy chase, and somehow ending up scrabbling through a tunnel in the middle of nowhere, hot on the heels of the bad guys. 

He'd just wanted to get his photo taken with Mickey Mouse. It didn't seem like too much to ask.

" _You're_ the trouble magnet," Matt muttered under his breath.

John paused with his back to the rough rock wall, his gun loose but ready against his thigh. It should have reminded him of Indiana Jones, but John wasn't really the fedora type. And the tunnels put him more in mind of _Dune_ for some reason, with the sandy floors and ever present dust. And he _really_ should be concentrating on not getting his head blown off at the next blind turn and not on how Kyle McLachlan was such an unfortunate choice of casting of Paul Atreides but sometimes his mind went where it wanted to and he was just along for the ride. 

John held up a hand and cocked his head, listening, though all Matt could hear was the slow drip of water from somewhere further ahead of them. Of course, it wouldn't surprise him if John had super-hearing or something. He was more superhero than mild-mannered archaeologist _or_ saviour of the Fremen, after all. Matt shook his head, gripped the metal pipe he'd snatched up earlier a little tighter, waited until John nodded and gave the all clear before moving forward again.

But first John glanced back at Matt and smirked, teeth very white in the gloom. 

Yup. Trouble magnet. At least he didn't try to deny it.

They'd barely moved another thirty feet through the darkened tunnel before Matt heard it, too. Guttural voices up ahead. The shifting of several pairs of feet in the dirt. He couldn't see anything but John's broad back; watched carefully as John took a cautious step forward, then another.

_SNAP._

Matt's gaze followed John's to the crooked metal pipe on the ground. He had time to register that it had been craftily hidden by the dirt, and to follow the progress of the twisting cord that led from it to a rudimentary explosive device attached to the wall. Had time to hear John murmur "oh shit." 

Then the world exploded.

* * *

Matt opened his eyes to… nothingness. Ink black, coal black. For a moment he wasn't even sure his eyes _were_ open and he scrambled to slap at his face. His hands found grit, dirt, tiny pebbles indenting the flesh of his cheeks, the slick thick wetness of blood at his temple. He winced, gasped at the sudden pain when his fingers slid along the edge of the cut. The pain helped clarify things, though, and he realized he could see the pads of his fingers. He blinked more dust out of his eyes and could make out the curve of his palm.

So he could see. A little. The visibility only stretched about a foot, but it was a start.

"McClane?"

Matt held his breath, strained to hear a response. But the silence was as absolute as the darkness, thick and all-encompassing. 

He pulled himself to his feet, stifled a groan when his bad leg nearly crumpled beneath him. Apparently getting nearly blown up – again – wasn't great for the rehab. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and took a shuffling step forward, arms outstretched. The crumbled concrete scattered in front of his sneakers, skittering and bouncing off the walls. The air was thick with dust and he struggled to take shallow breaths, to hold the panic at bay. He was going to be fine. They were going to be fine. He just had to find John. Find John and then find a way to get out of the mine shaft before their air ran out and they died gasping for breath and clawing at their throats and turning blue and—

Matt stopped, his breath coming in desperate gasps. The kind of ragged frantic breaths that use up all the oxygen more quickly and will just hasten their demise and no one knows they're here, no one followed this way and it'll be months before they're found, dead and rotting and—

Wait. He made himself stand motionless, dipped his head and closed his eyes. He fumbled at the collar of his T-shirt, covered his mouth and allowed himself one deep breath. Then another. He could still feel the dust coating his tongue and clogging his throat, but the T-shirt filtered the worst of it. A third breath and he no longer felt like he's going to start running pell-mell through the tunnels. He'd probably just careen into a wall and knock himself out, anyway. 

He finally raised his head and let the T-shirt fall back into place. He swept his hands in front of him, felt nothing but air. He realized now that he shouldn't have strayed away from where he'd woken up, that he's lost his bearings without the wall at his back. He shook his head. He just needed to find a wall and then work backwards from there, checking outward every few feet. John couldn't have landed far away from him.

Unless John got caught in the explosion. Unless John was now nothing more than scattered body parts, or trapped beneath a mound of rubble with his skull caved in, or—

No. Matt swallowed, coughed around a throat full of dust. Closed his eyes and counted to ten silently and waited for his heart to stop trying to push its way out of his chest before he started moving forward again, sliding his feet carefully in the debris. "John? McCLANE!"

"Jesus, kid. You gotta be so loud? I got a bitch of a headache."

Matt whirled to his left, stumbled and nearly fell over John's prone legs. He dropped to his knees, reached out blindly. "Oh my god, are you okay? 

"Remember that time your Aunt Gloria showed up at the station house and nearly decapitated me with her umbrella because I was corrupting your morals?"

"Kowalski and Lambert still call me every time there's a rainstorm to make sure Gloria's safe in Jersey," Matt answered.

"Yeah, well. This? Is better than that."

John huffed out a laugh that sounded too thick, like something large and heavy had lodged itself in his chest and was struggling to get out. Matt tried not to worry about it – the dust in the air was making him sound like a two pack a day man himself, so it stood to reason that John was feeling the same effects – and slid carefully down to sit beside John. Just the press of John's thigh next to his made him feel better, more centered. But then that had been pretty much the case since Day Two of the Great Foil The Firesale Adventure of Ought Seven, so he wasn't all that surprised.

He let his head fall back against the rock. Listened to John's heavy breathing. Waited. Finally said, "So are we going to try to dig out way out or…"

"Nope."

Matt frowned. He sat up a little straighter and tried to search the darkness, but he couldn't even make out his own hands curled in his lap. "Rappel?" he suggested. "If we could find the cords that were hooked up to the explosive, we could maybe make some kind of rope—"

"Nope."

Matt slumped back, winced when a sharp shard of rock dug in between his shoulder blades. "Okay," he said, "if this is some kind of test to gauge my survival skills, I should tell you right now that I was the only kid who got lost trying to get my orienteering badge, even with a map and a compass. Though in my defense I think the compass was broken because no matter what way I turned it said I was facing north, and I wouldn't have put it past Joey Masucci to fuck with it when I wasn't looking, he was totally jealous that I got my stamping badge _way_ before him—"

"Kid." 

Mouth. It runs away with him, just like his brain. It happens. Especially when focusing on the current problem was a little too taxing. He forcibly pushed aside thoughts of that little rat bastard Masucci and shifted a little to take the pressure off his calf. "I give up," he said. "How are we getting out of here?"

"We're not," John said.

"But—"

"Gonna sit here," John said. "I got at least a couple of broken fuckin' ribs, kid. We can't see shit. Al was maybe ten minutes behind us with backup. We're gonna sit and wait for the goddamn cavalry." He spat out another laugh that ended in a phlegmy, whistling hiss. "Maybe I finally learned something in my old age."

"I'll alert the media," Matt answered reflexively – sarcasm was one of his best things – but he still didn't like the sound of that cough. He tried to oh-so-casually study John in the gloom, and was even less happy with what he saw. John was ashen beneath the layer of dirt and grime. His breathing was shallow, his chest barely moving.

And Matt realized suddenly that it wasn't just John who was struggling to catch a proper breath. The air felt… dry. Thin, like there wasn't really enough of it to go around. He could feel it strangling in his throat as his pulse sped up. Eventually they'd be gasping for air, desperate to get some of it into their lungs, fingers hooked into claws and scrabbling at their throats and—

He had to stay calm. _Fear is the mind killer_ , he thought. _Fear is the little death._

He really wanted to kick Paul Atreides in the nuts.

But maybe John was so out of it that he didn't know that the air was getting thinner. Maybe if he knew, he'd change his plan. Or lack of plan. Matt closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. He just had to come up with a plan himself, that's all. He had no right to worry McClane about any of it.

"John?"

"Jeeeezus, kid. Tryin' to get some shut eye here."

"Okay," Matt said quickly. He pressed his lips shut so tight they were probably turning white from the pressure. He hadn't meant to say John's name anyway. He was just going to sit here quietly and think. Let John rest.

"It's just," he says. "What-if-the-air-runs-out?" 

Shit.

He jumped when John's fingers clasped onto his wrist and guided his hand up above his head. 

"Feel that, Matt?"

At first he thought John meant the strong fingers around his hand, the rough calluses brushing against his palm. Thought that John was trying to reassure him that he was fine, strong; showing him that he was gonna get through this, like Matt hadn't already figured out from the thick, syrupy sound coming from John that one of those broken ribs had probably nicked a lung. 

Then he felt the faint brush of movement at his fingertips, and understood. "Air."

"Got an opening somewhere above us," John confirmed. "Ain't gonna be runnin' out of oxygen anytime soon."

Matt slowly lowered his arm but didn't release John's hand. Everything tended to feel a little better when he kept John close. And John must have felt the same, because his fingers squeezed Matt's hand tight and the rough pad of his thumb stroked his palm. Already Matt could feel his breathing getting back to normal. "Okay," he said. "That's a relief."

"Of course, there's the chance of a secondary cave-in," John said.

"Don't."

"Starvation's always a possibility," John continued. "Hey, you're the brainiac. How long can the human body go without food and water?"

"You're a dick, McClane."

"Yup," John agreed.

Matt couldn't see a damn thing in the darkness, but somehow he knew John was smiling. "Wait. You called Detective Powell?"

"Right before we lost service," John confirmed. He turned his head slowly, and yup, the fucker was definitely smiling. "Ain't just a pretty face, ya know."

* * *

"And then Al slid down the rope ladder and hauled us up," Matt finished. He spread his hands wide. "And here we are. Experiencing the finest health care that the west coast and John's medical insurance has to offer."

"It sounds very… exciting," Holly said. She smiled at Matt, but her eyes were all for John in the next bed. "I remember those days."

"Miss 'em?" John asked.

"Getting held hostage, dangling out of skyscrapers, nearly crashing into the Potomac?" Holly answered dryly.

"Yeah."

Holly's smile grew softer. "A little," she said. The hand that held John's squeezed just a bit before she let go and turned her attention back to Matt. "I'm sorry that your first visit to California was such a disaster."

"You know what they say," Matt said, "'it'll be one to tell the grandkids'." He grinned at John, then faltered when the affable smile on John's face morphed to something that looked a little like panic. Weird to see that now and not when they were trapped under five hundred pounds of rock. He waved the hand that wasn't hooked up to the IV. "Not that… I don't mean that there will necessarily be any kids to give us grandkids. Well, not now. Maybe later… or not. It's a… I mean I think I might like to have a.. we haven't even talked about it!"

"Calm down, kid."

"Just picture it, John," Holly said mischievously. "A little one running around again. Little League. Or ballet lessons."

When her eyes sparkled like that, Matt could see why John had fallen in love with her once upon a time.

Matt had no trouble picturing it. A little girl with John's eyes, or a boy with his own mop of hair. Or a child that looked nothing like the two of them – there were tons of kids in orphanages and foster homes that needed good, caring parents. Yeah, he could picture it just fine. Then Holly's words came back to him, and he shook his head. "Wait a minute. Our _first_ visit to California?"

"Of course," Holly said. "You'll be back for Christmas."

In the other bed, John groaned. Matt was pretty sure it wasn't because of his broken ribs.


End file.
